MINNEAPOLIS _ Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Wednesday called for an arrest and charges against the now-fired Minneapolis police officer who knelt on the neck of George Floyd as he pleaded to breathe shortly before his death, in an incident caught on video that drew international outrage.
"There are precedents and protocols sitting in the reserves of institutions just like this one that would give you about a thousand reasons not to do something, not to speak out, not to act so quickly. And I've wrestled with, more than anything else over the last 36 hours, one fundamental question: Why is the man who killed George Floyd not in jail?" Frey said. "If you had done it, or I had done it, we would be behind bars right now. And I cannot come up with a good answer to that question."
The city identified the officers involved as Derek Chauvin, who was captured on video kneeling on Floyd's neck; Thomas Lane; Tou Thao and J Alexander Kueng. Chief Medaria Arradondo fired all four Tuesday. Chauvin, 44, is a 19-year department veteran. Thao joined the department in 2009, was laid off for two years and returned in 2012. Lane and Kueng were both rookie cops, who had only recently completed field training and were still in their probationary periods.
Frey said he is calling upon Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman to seek charges involved with the Monday incident. In a statement, Freeman's office said it was "aware of Mayor Frey's comments."
"We are working with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the Hennepin County Medical Examiner to expeditiously gather and review all of the evidence in the tragic death of Mr. George Floyd," the statement said. "The videotaped death of Mr. Floyd, which has outraged us and people across the country, deserves the best we can give and that is what this office will do."
Department of Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington said the BCA investigation, which he oversees as commissioner, has already begun.
"We will do an expeditious investigation. We will ensure that this is not an investigation that lags," he said, adding that they won't cut corners in moving quickly to complete their work.
Chauvin is represented by attorney Tom Kelly; Thao is represented by Robert Paule, Kueng is represented by Thomas Plunkett, and Lane is represented by Earl Gray. All declined to comment.
The former officers could face state criminal charges and federal civil rights charges.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said Wednesday that he was "shocked and horrified" by the video of George Floyd's death. On Wednesday, President Donld Trump briefly weighed in on the incident, calling it "a very, very sad event" and added that he expected to receive a full report when he returns to the nation's capital from the postponed SpaceX launch in Florida.
Frey said he made the decision to call for charges after watching video that circulated widely and publicly. He said he has not spoken to the officers involved or seen the footage captured by their body cameras. Frey said the restraint technique used against Floyd is not authorized by the Minneapolis Police Department, is not something officers were trained in and "should not be used, period."
"We watched for five whole excruciating minutes as a white officer firmly pressed his knee into the neck of an unarmed handcuffed black man. I saw no threat. I saw nothing that would signal that this kind of force was necessary," Frey said.
He noted that in many other cases, officers' decisions are made in "four or five or six seconds."
"We are not talking about a split-second decision that was made incorrectly," Frey said. "There's somewhere around 300 seconds in those five minutes, every one of which the officer could have turned back, every second of which he could have removed his knee from George Floyd's neck. Every one of which he could have listened to community around him clearly saying that he needed to stop. Every one of which you heard George Floyd himself articulating the pain he was feeling, his inability to breathe, I can't see coming to a different answer there and I think it's incumbent on all of us to say that."
On Wednesday, the Minnesota Peace Officer Standards and Training Board said Chauvin's actions do not reflect any training officers receive.
"The video is troubling and disturbing and it is the Board's position that sanctity of life must be the guiding principle for all law enforcement officers," the statement said. "We will work tirelessly to ensure that all Police Officers in Minnesota have the tools they need to prevent this type of tragedy in the future."
Eric Hageman, a local attorney who has successfully sued police officers in brutality cases, said that use of force must be "objectively reasonable" from the officer's perspective at the time it was used, a standard established in the landmark 1989 Supreme Court case, Graham v. Connor.
Among the factors a court might consider in such a case are the severity of the underlying crime, whether the suspect was actively resisting arrest and whether his or her behavior presented a threat to the safety of the officer or anyone else.
"The video would appear that he was using force solely for the purpose of inflicting harm, which is unconstitutional," he said. "It's a helpless person, who's unnecessarily suffocated."
The incident has also renewed calls for overhauling the department's culture, although most critics have stopped short of calling for the chief's resignation.
Elizer Darris, an organizer with the American Civil Liberties Union, said he sees a need to first root out a departmental culture that prioritizes covering for one another. This "blue code of silence" continued even after Arradondo issued an order saying that officers who allowed their colleagues to behave badly would also be held responsible.
"Even if that's your blue brother, the preservation of life should be paramount to everything else," he said, adding that the ACLU intends to ask Walz to appoint a special prosecutor to handle the case.
Frey stopped short of detailing which specific charges he would like Chauvin to face, saying that, "If we want to see that charge, it would not be wise for me to provide the specifics of the form."
The FBI is also assisting with the investigation, and while Frey said he believes the charging authority lies with Freeman, he added that to the extent federal authorities have jurisdiction as well, "Yeah, I'm calling on that too."
The mayor said he had not seen any evidence that Floyd resisted arrest. He said he wanted the body camera footage to be released "as soon as possible, while not compromising the investigation but, more importantly, the charge that I hope will come forward."
Minneapolis Police Federation president Lt. Bob Kroll did not respond to multiple voicemails and text messages requesting comment. When a reporter visited his office, he declined to take questions.
